The Cooks of England offering up their Kitchen Stuff to their Black Idol.
It shall have all the kitchen stuff—so it shall.
A Lover of Grease.
DE BLACK DOLLIBUS.
The Black Dolls of England are a highly comic race. They were the first to mingle the unctuous joke with the dry details of business, and to give a lightness to puffs before unknown to the paste of the Billsticker. They are the Smolletts of Posters, and the Fieldings of the Broad Sheet. Clare Market appears to be the grand centre of these right merrie marine store shops. Here a magazine of linen rags and witty conceits displays a thoroughly Gran-tian work of art, in which one cook is inquiring of another, who wears a chapeau in tremendously full flower, "My dear, where did you get that splendid new bonnet from?" to which the other replies, "Why, by carrying my bones and fat to the real original Black Doll, No. 12," &c. Another racy repository exhibits a grand transparency, representing a tête-à-tête between the Black Doll and one of her fellow-countrymen, in which the dark gentleman, in a most unniggerly dialect, is made to ask, "Why, Dinah, do all the people come to Massa's shop?" and Dinah to reply, "Because Sambo, Massa gives the best price for all old-iron, linen rags, and kitchen stuff." Then there is the highly popular bellman, who is eternally crying, "Oh yes! Oh yes! WE (!) are now giving two-pence for three pounds of old bones," &c. And last of all, the exceedingly tempting inquiry, "Do you want a plum pudding?" of which dainty there is prefixed a splendidly coloured caricature, and for which one spirited rag merchant subjoins the following curious recipe:—
The Black Doll's Receipt for a Good Plum Pudding.
Take 8lbs. of the best white linen rags, 4lbs. of broken flint glass, and 12 ditto of old bones; throw in a handful of old nails, with a few horses' shoes, and flat irons at discretion. Put these into a bag, and bring them to No. 12, &c., and you will find that it will make you a good family plum pudding; but if you wish to give it additional richness, you should add a few pounds of kitchen-stuff, and put a pound or two of candles into the grease pot.